I will get right to it. I am trying to install Ubuntu on a computer I cobbled together for my girlfriends brother and every time I try to install Ubuntu 13.04 64bit on the machine, it throws up an error panic: early exception 0d rip 10:ffffffff811358f6 error 0 cr2 f07f8b

This smells like bad memory or or a write fail but you might want to try an older version to see if it makes a difference. Cost is zero, it's quicker than memtest, and I've run into issues putting new distros on old hardware.

NovusBogus wrote:This smells like bad memory or or a write fail but you might want to try an older version to see if it makes a difference. Cost is zero, it's quicker than memtest, and I've run into issues putting new distros on old hardware.

If it is bad memory, being able to load a different distro means nothing. All it means is the bad memory location doesn't happen to be used for anything critical in that distro.

That said, the support cycles on the non-LTS Ubuntu releases are way too short (13.04 is only supported for a few more months), and the overall stability is often too iffy for a general-use system. IMO non-LTS is only good for "I want to check out some bleeding edge Linux stuff but don't want to build my own packages from source" systems. Or, to put it another way: the non-LTS Ubuntu releases are based on snapshots of the Debian "unstable" development branch... enough said!

Run Memtest. If that passes, make sure the BIOS is updated to the last available version. Try another video card if you can. And yes, definitely back off to 12.04 LTS.

You could try something like Finnix or Crunchbang, both of which are a lot lighter then Ubuntu. I only mention them because they will boot faster, and you'll save a couple of minutes while you try different hardware configs.

Finnix will boot to a command line with only a couple services started, and it has memtest as well as 32-bit and 64-bit kernels in the image. It's really nice as long as you're comfortable on the Linux command line.

Crunchbang is based on Debian stable, and it boots into Openbox.

I'd also suggest using a USB flash drive to boot off of, if the motherboard supports it. They are so much quicker, and YUMI (http://www.pendrivelinux.com/yumi-multi ... b-creator/) will let you boot multiple distros off of one flash drive, provided it has space for them. I have a 8GB drive setup with various distros I use for various things. It doesn't support Finnix, so you'll need a flash drive for it or try the ISO boot option.

just brew it! wrote:Would you load it on a system "cobbled together for my girlfriends brother" (as stated by the OP), knowing that you're going to be getting the call every time something doesn't work as expected?

No, and I never said I would. I agreed with you that it's not for everyone, or even most people. What I took issue with was your implication that it's not suitable for anyone.

overall stability is often too iffy for a general-use system

IMO non-LTS is only good for "I want to check out some bleeding edge Linux stuff but don't want to build my own packages from source" systems. Or, to put it another way: the non-LTS Ubuntu releases are based on snapshots of the Debian "unstable" development branch... enough said!

We're not disagreeing, per se. You made one point I disagree with, specifically this: {non-LTS is only good for "I want to check out some bleeding edge Linux stuff but don't want to build my own packages from source"} non-LTS, and Debian Sid, have a place, and in good hands, a single Debian Sid can remain online and functional and fully usable for years. In good hands. I'm not saying it's for everyone. I am saying that it's good for more than just "want to play with bleeding edge" disposable systems.

So... given the extra care and feeding required, why *do* you run it, if not "to play with the bleeding edge"? Not trying to be disparaging here, I'm genuinely curious what you perceive the advantages to be. If the answer is that you value your role as a beta tester, that's certainly valid, and something I respect; Debian needs people like that!! But it still falls under the "play with bleeding edge stuff" umbrella, IMO.

I could see selectively pulling in a package or two here and there, but I don't think I have the time or patience to deal with what amounts to a rolling beta. This is also why I don't use Fedora on any of my daily use systems any more; while they do have official release milestones (unlike Sid), some of the Fedora releases have been kinda rough.

Here is my issue now. I cannot install the AMD drivers for the graphics card I installed. When I start up the machine with the card installed, I cant see what is happening on the screen. When I start it up without the graphics card installed, I cannot install the graphics drivers....

So... given the extra care and feeding required, why *do* you run it, if not "to play with the bleeding edge"? Not trying to be disparaging here, I'm genuinely curious what you perceive the advantages to be. If the answer is that you value your role as a beta tester, that's certainly valid, and something I respect; Debian needs people like that!! But it still falls under the "play with bleeding edge stuff" umbrella, IMO.

I could see selectively pulling in a package or two here and there, but I don't think I have the time or patience to deal with what amounts to a rolling beta. This is also why I don't use Fedora on any of my daily use systems any more; while they do have official release milestones (unlike Sid), some of the Fedora releases have been kinda rough.

I run Sid because it's the best balance of current, tested, and supported. It's close enough to the Ubuntu "standard" that a lot of things intended for Ubuntu work, the Debian DFSG means that they're being militant about Free as in Freedom so I don't have to, and breakage really is rare and manageable if you're paying attention. People seem to have this mental image of Sid as some wild and unregulated playground where things are just added and removed for fun. Things are added outside the release tree, they get put in testing to verify they play with the other packages, get moved to testing when they are thought to be possibly stable, and down into Stable once they're old and grey and tested beyond chance of failure.

There are really at least three usable places on that spectrum, in my mind. The production machines run Stable, most of the machines run stable if it's recent, testing otherwise, and the machines I can take time to fix in case of problems run unstable.

To directly answer you, I run Sid because Sid and Testing are the same right now, and I care about recent more than reliable, on my daily use machines. I have backups, I have smart partitioning, and a second OS I can boot in a pinch.

Forge wrote:To directly answer you, I run Sid because Sid and Testing are the same right now, and I care about recent more than reliable, on my daily use machines. I have backups, I have smart partitioning, and a second OS I can boot in a pinch.

Again, fair enough. The main difference between us seems to be that I care more about reliable than recent. For the few things where Ubuntu LTS is a little too out-of-date I'm generally able to find a PPA with more recent versions; or (failing that) I'll attempt a build from upstream source provided the library dependencies don't necessitate tracking down newer upstream versions of a bazillion other packages.

I suppose I could accomplish much the same thing by running Debian Stable and selectively pulling individual packages from Testing and Unstable as needed. One of my co-workers does it that way, but his apt-fu is stronger than mine.

I'm with JBI. With the Ubuntu LTS you can also update to the latest Mesa and kernel, if you want. I use ubuntu because I like the abomination that is Unity and the commonality of support. It's easy to find things for it. Steam and Spotify work great for me. Even the AMD drivers have been painless.

derTorbs wrote:When I start up the machine with the card installed, I cant see what is happening on the screen. When I start it up without the graphics card installed, I cannot install the graphics drivers....

Put the graphics card in and boot with "nomodeset" added to the kernel parameter line. I suspect the kernel mode setting is screwing up the display and disabling should get you up and running, even in some horrible low resolution. Then Applications->System Tools->System Settings and click on Additional Drivers to let it auto-detect and install.